Republicans Confirmed A Lot Of Judges! Good News Friday!

Republicans Confirmed A Lot Of Judges! Good News Friday: We call it Good News Friday because it’s a chance for David and Tim to share some good news from across the nation and around the world. In this episode, we talk about how Republicans confirmed lots of judges during Kavanaugh hearing. How premarital cohabitation is associated with divorce. How that over 70% of Americans think that the media is peddling hate and dividing the country. And more!

Transcription note: As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! Where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, all of it from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker, pastor, and president of WallBuilders. And my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state legislator, national speaker, and author.

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We call today Good News Friday because we’re taking that biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective on all of these major issues of the day. We think doing that in a good news fashion is a good idea. I think, David, we joked about being Joshua and Caleb types, and not being like the other 10 spies. They looked at the land and all they could bring back was the negative report. We want to be like Joshua and Caleb and say, “Hey, look at the good things God put in front of us even though we have a lot of challenges.”

There’s a lot of good things happening right now.

David:

There are a lot of good things happening. It doesn’t take much good news to keep people really encouraged. We’re so inundated with so many negative things, and even if you hear good news it gets so attacked oftentimes in the media, that just having a steady diet of one program full of nothing but good news… Man, that will keep you going for a full week until next Good News Friday.

Rick:

Right. Guys, I’ll toss it to you. David, Tim, who wants to go first?

24 New Judges Appointed by Trump along with Kavanaugh

David:

I’m going to start off. I’m going to go to Justice Kavanaugh. He was Judge Kavanaugh for a long time, now is Justice Kavanaugh. He is sitting on the Supreme Court. They’ve already issued rulings out of the Supreme Court, and some very favorable rulings so far. So Justice Kavanaugh is there, which is good, but I want to go back to the hearings and all the stuff that went on with that.

You know he was eventually confirmed, and all that was just the drama that went with it. Nobody really paid attention to the fact that when he got confirmed, an additional 24 federal judges also got confirmed to the court. Now, did you hear that in the news?

Rick:

Nobody’s talking about that.

David:

Nobody. Now we got Justice Kavanaugh on the court, and that was a huge deal. How many tens of millions were spent to keep that from happening? In addition to that, we get 24 other judges on the court. When you look at the list of how those judges stack out, and I’m going to go back to the past six Presidents of the United States, OK?

So we get Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Trump. You look at the first two years, and how they ended up in the first two years, the one who got the most judges appointed was Bill Clinton with 128.

The next one was Donald Trump. He came in second with 84 total appointments, but he had more court of appeals judges confirmed than any other president. So it has been substantial because 99 percent of all court cases, and at the Federal Court of Appeals, and so he’s got more appeals court judges on there.

Trump has a lot More Judges to Appoint

Tim:

Yes. It’s a much higher ranking judicial appointments he’s had, not to mention the Supreme Court, which in his first two years nobody really saw that coming, although many of us from the outside who weren’t huge fans of Trump, and actually many people who still aren’t huge fans of Trump, were still supportive thinking the Supreme Court will be very significant in the culture and climate we live in. Sure enough, having these two appointments is seeming to be pretty significant, and not like many presidents before him with those those high level appointments he’s had.

Rick:

And he’s got a lot of vacancies left, right? There’s still a lot of vacancies there.

David:

Oh my goodness. Is it 120 left? I think he’s nominated another 60 or 70, there’s 120 left, so he’s still got 40 or 50 that he’s got to come up with names for. But see, that’s the next piece of good news, is Don McGahn. Do you know who Don McGahn is?

Rick:

I don’t.David:

Either of you?

Tim:

I know the name, but I can’t place it right now.

David:

Well, he’s the White House Counsel. He’s the one in charge of choosing the judges that get submitted to Trump for nomination. So while Trump has done a very good job of getting these guys nominated, guess who has been screening them and picking the really, really good guys: Don McGahn.

A Good Job to Mitch McConnell

So McGahn is the one who gets so much credit for what’s happened with these judges. And to Mitch McConnell’s credit, he stepped up and they got stuff done in the Senate. And you know that even with the last 24 judges that we’re talking about with Kavanaugh, he said, “Oh, by the way, I’m going to hold everybody in session and you’re not going to have time to go home to campaign for your Senate races unless you want to confirm these 24 judges.”

So the great job of bartering to get those 24 judges done because, of course, a lot of the Democrats wanted to go home and campaign for Senate seats.

Rick:

Can I just make a side note here on McConnell, because I haven’t had a lot to thank or praise the guy for over the years, mostly just things to complain about, but he really has been so pleased greatly with the way he’s handled these judges over the last 24 months. It’s been great.

David:

Yeah. I’ve had more good stuff to say about Mitch McConnell the last 24 months, strictly because of judges, than I’ve ever been able to say about him before.

Rick:

I should say 36 months, because he held out on not replacing Scalia until the new President was in office after 8-10 months of that. That was important for him to be strong there too.

Anyway, sorry. I didn’t mean to distract you, but I just complained about him so much over the years, I feel like every time we talk about him and judges I should say, “Okay, yeah. Props on this one.”

Pat Cipollone is Taking Over as White House Council

David:

Yeah. That’s what we try to do around here. There was even a couple of times when I had to give props to President Obama on stuff that I thought he got right. So we try to do the good, the bad, and the ugly, and be fair across the board on that.

Rick:

The Bible says to give honor to honor.

David:

That’s right. You give honor where it’s due. You don’t have to be partisan with that. So within that framework, Don McGahn is the guy who’s been behind this. Well, bad news is Don McGahn left the White House. So he is gone now. So what does that mean?

Well, we haven’t seen a change in the type of judges being nominated because simply Pat Cipollone is now the White House Counsel.

And guess what, he is a great guy on this stuff. So there’s all sorts of good news surrounding what’s happening with federal judges right now, but those two unknown names, Don McGahn and Pat Cipollone, these are guys that—huge props to them for what they’re doing, and for giving President Trump the right caliber of judges, and huge props to President Trump for taking those guys and moving them forward.

Trump’s Opposition vs Previous Presidents

Rick:

Is it just me, or all of them—not just the judicial appointments, but just what you’re talking about, the people that he surrounded himself with and put in the position of being the ones to vet and review. We’ve got friends that are in those circles and in those meetings that are really good folks. I just expect, maybe it’s a disappointment Republican presidents earlier in my life have given me on these issues, I expect a Republican to be 50/50 on this, and he just keeps batting—maybe not a thousand, but really in the high nine hundreds.

Trump:

His slugging percentage is way up there. He is the MVP on this. By the way, Matt pointed out that President Trump has had a little bit of adversity to overcome in doing this.

Now, I mentioned Rule 22, which is that filibuster thing. You do that to try to force the votes, and try to keep people from ever coming to a vote. In the same way another tactical procedure they use is what’s called roll call votes. So roll call votes are designed to slow things down, whether you have to call everybody by name rather than just having a vocal ayes and nays. You call everybody by name, and it takes hours to go through and do that. So it can take up to hours depending on what the vote is. It’s a way of slowing it down so you don’t get nearly as many through, and despite all of that, Trump has been able to get these judges through.

Now, here’s my question for you guys. This filibuster, this cloture vote, Reagan had 89 nominees in his first two years. How many of them had filibuster or cloture votes?

0, 0, 1, 3, 46

Tim:

I’m going to guess not many, if any. So how many do you see this first year?

David:

He had 89.

Tim:

Let’s say he had two?

David:

Zero. OK, how about George Herbert Walker Bush?

Tim:

One?

David:

Zero. How about Clinton?

Tim:

One?

David:

One. How about George W. Bush?

Tim:

I feel like there will be a little more, because here we’re becoming a little more politicized, but certainly not early on. I wouldn’t think, because the war efforts, people are rallying and uniting but let’s see. How many did he have?

David:

He had 149.

Tim:

There’s a lot more to choose from. Let’s say three?

David:

It is three.

Tim:

Yes!

David:

Good call.

Rick:

And these are with opposite party congresses?

David:

This is with the opposite party in power, yes. Obama, of course Republicans there. So with Obama, how many cloture votes? He had 97 judges.

Tim:

Two?

David:

Two is right.

Trump, 154 nominees, how many cloture votes?

Tim:

A lot.

David:

Let’s see if I get this right: 0, 0, 1, 3, 46. That’s a lot of opposition. Now, let’s go to roll call votes. Reagan had one, George Herbert Walker Bush had two, Clinton had four, Trump had 57.

Despite this, Trump’s Still Getting Through

Tim:

Wow.

David:

It’s like, for every one of these judges, they’re digging in their heels and fighting, and we’re still getting them through. So between Trump, and McGahn, Cipollone, and McConnell, it’s just great what they’re doing on the Federal Bench.

Rick:

Before we go to break, can I ask you guys—because I know we work with maybe 60-70 members of Congress at least—so you guys are talking to these guys all the time. What’s your sense of just battle fatigue, or not, since they are having to fight tooth and nail on all of these. It seems like we keep winning, so we don’t seem to have lost any of the energy there, but what’s your feel behind the scenes on that?

David:

Well, I don’t think the energy is gone. I think what you’ve seen is Lindsey Graham is no longer on the fence.

Keeping Strong

Tim:

Well, and it’s worth noting it’s different after the midterms than it was before. That’s true. So it’s a little different now, based on some of the losses, some of the unexpected losses, some of the power shift in places. However, that as you mentioned Lindsey Graham, on the Senate side I don’t think they’ve had a bunch, if any, energy lost over on the Senate side.

These guys that have been bipartisan for all these years, it is so far over the top now that they’ve come off the fence. They’re no longer trying to be cordial. You got Lindsey Graham and what we saw with Ben Sasse, and what we saw was Senator Ted Kennedy out to Louisiana, and all these others. These are guys that you just haven’t seen speak up, and they’re off the fence.

So in that sense the energy is really, really high. But yeah, there is some difference since the election for sure. On the Senate side I think it’s still there.

Rick:

Very good, very good. Quick break, then we’ll be right back. Folks you’re listening to WallBuilders Live, it’s Good News Friday.

Moment From American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. After the final victory at Yorktown the Continental Army awaited the outcome of peace negotiations with Great Britain.

Pastor Israel Evans, a chaplain in the army, proposed to George Washington that they build a structure where church services can be held during the months of waiting. Washington approved the plan and urges officers to ensure that the soldiers attend that service.

Pastor Evans further knew if we were to secure the liberties they had fought for, sound education would be crucial.

He declared, “Every parent and every friend to the freedom of his country ought to be attentive to the improvement of our youth and the principles of freedom and good government. And then the people will stand fast in their liberty for a long time.” Our schools today need to return to teaching the principles of freedom and good government in order for America to survive and prosper. For more information about Pastor Israel Evans and other colonial Patriots go to WallBuilders.com

Yet Another Study Shows that Biblical Morals are Good for Relationships

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. Tim Barton has our next piece of good news. Tim?

Tim:

All right guys this is a new study, it came out in the Journal of Marriage and Family, and here’s the title, “Premarital Cohabitation is Still Associated with Greater Odds of Divorce.” And they document, from a another study, that people that are sexually active and living together, it’s actually not better for their marriage. Certainly one of the trends we are seeing going with the millennials, with the Gen Z, and the next generation up and coming, it’s kind of embracing of this idea of living together and sexual activity, and that’s part of dating, and it’s part of relationships.

I know many young millennials who have decided they wanted to move in together, and they’re not married, and they’re sexually active, and I’m going, “Guys, what you’re doing, that’s not a good decision.”

In this culture where truth is relative, and what I feel and how I want is more important, it is interesting that studies continue to confirm what the Bible teaches. Although one of the things they pointed out in this study is it’s a contrast, because there are a couple of new studies that show actually there’s not a higher divorce rate for couples that live together.

Studies Show a Higher Divorce Rate Among Couples who Live Together Before Getting Married

Now, Dad and Rick, here’s your question. The studies show there is not a higher divorce rate for couples that live together. What are the parameters of that steady, what do you think are those parameters they put on it? Because knowing the Bible teaches that, obviously, that’s not what you should be doing, so we know it is going to be a catch in the system. So you don’t outsmart God. God says, “Don’t do it,” then there’s a reason.

But there are studies that show it’s not a higher divorce rate for the couples that live together, but there’s a specific parameter that they don’t highlight in this study showing why those are faulty studies.

Rick:

Interesting.

Tim:

What do you think the parameter is?

David:

Committed living together for a period of time.

Rick:

Yeah, I was thinking the length of time.

David:

I would call it what used to be called a common law marriage. Those where you make a lifelong commitment, you don’t have a piece of paper, you didn’t get it agreed—

Tim:

So yours is right, but not the way you’re going. So what they identified is that there actually is not a higher divorce rate for those that live together for the first couple of years.

Rick:

Got it.

God Created Marriage for a Reason

Tim:

But after you’ve been together more than three, four, five years, that’s when the divorce rate takes off.

So this is what they’re saying, “Look, living together didn’t help you stay married, and actually the people that didn’t live together first had a different level of commitment, and they have maintained their marriage where you did not.”

Again, just kind of an interesting study, but it’s another point-in-case where it confirms what the Bible teaches, that sex is something certainly God created, it’s awesome, it’s wonderful, but he created it for the the boundaries in the confines of marriage between a married man and married woman.

One of the things the Bible talks about is that the marriage bed is undefiled. When you’re a husband or wife, go for it. That’s great, God made that. However, it’s supposed to be in the confines of marriage, and culture where we’ve reduced human sexuality to just, “If you feel like it, go for it,” it really does not produce good results. And so this is just another survey and study showing, yet again, that what the Bible teaches actually is the best thing. If you want to be in a long term relationship, the best thing to do is wait until you are married to live together, to be sexually active.

Join Us In Israel!

Hey guys what are you doing January 28th through February 7th? If you said you don’t know, let me give you an idea. We are going to Israel. Rick Green, my dad, David Barton, Tim Barton, our families are going and we would love for you to go with us. We are going to the Holy Land if you’ve ever been to Israel this is something as a Christian that will make you forever read your bible differently.

To see where Jesus walked, where He lived, where He did miracles, where so much of the Bible took place. If you’ve ever read through the Bible and you’ve given it a mental picture, the mental picture will not do justice of what happens when you’re actually on the ground. If you’ve ever thought about the story of David and Goliath and you’ve envisioned what it looks like, we’re going to go to the actual field where it took place.

There are so many things that you will see that literally makes the Bible come to life. In fact, that’s the name of the tour group we’re going with is The Bible Comes to Life. Go to CMJacksboro.com. You can click on the link, it has an Israel itinerary, all kinds of details. Hope to see you on this trip this coming year.

A Letter from a Viewer

Rick:

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live. It’s Good News Friday today. David and Tim have more good news for you, but guys, if it’s OK, I want to read an email that’s actually some good news.

This one comes from Naomi. She said, “This summer was the third annual Bible Challenge at my church. The challenge is for people to read 100 chapters of the Bible in 30 days, 50 chapters for kids 4th grade and under, 100 verses read to kids who can’t read yet. Participants can pick the chapters, any chapters read during worship services do not count,” You don’t get to double dip there. “Audio Bible does not count,” too easy. She didn’t say that, I added that part in there.

“Reading the Bible as a family counts for each member present. Victors of the challenge are invited to the exclusive victors cookout. The number of those who were victorious grew to 60 this year. One woman read the entire Bible in a month.”

Whoa.

David:

Whoa.

Rick:

That’s like 12 times better than I’ve ever done. “If anyone is on the team that puts on the cookout, they still have to read if they want to attend.”

So I guess even if you’re doing the cooking and you didn’t read…

“One of the cooks realized it’s a bit late in the game, and I held him to it. He did the audio Bible option because he drives a lot and loved it so much he listened to 150 chapters in 3 days.”

A Great Way to Address Hard Issues

David:

I love it.

Rick:

A couple of quick stories, she said, “My favorite story is of mom and her four young kids, listen to the book of Genesis and all of it’s rated R glory, and she loved it because the kids asked her questions and she answered honestly. It gave our family a safe place to proactively deal with a lot of difficult subjects. These and many other accounts are evidence of the good God can bring when we read his word. Thank you so much for challenging me in your talk at Harding two and a half years ago.” David, I think this is directly to you. Did you to teach at Harding?

David:

I went to Harding and talked about how the custom in America was to read through the Bible from cover to cover once a year. That’s what the founders frequently did. That’s what schools did. So yeah, we talked about that.

Rick:

It worked. She says it, “Stuck with me, and I love challenging people to be in the Word more. It doesn’t hurt that the victors cookouts are a blast! Last year we built a huge maze and this year we had igloos and an epic snowball fight. Yes, in the summer socks make great snowballs and I will send pictures if anyone’s interested. I pray that God blesses all of you and your work to further His Kingdom ministry. Thank you for all your hard work in Him. God bless you.”

You Can Do This Too

Thank you for sending that, and yes, we’d love to see pictures of that snowball fight. David, Tim, what a blessing. It’s just so true. Any opportunity to get in God’s word. It’s not like you’re reading one verse a day. You’re really immersing yourself in His Word. Just imagine what’s happening in those lives, not just good cookouts, but like she did with her kids, just the conversations they were able to have.

Tim:

I love that this is something that everybody could do with their church, right? You can start your own little Bible challenge, your Bible club, or you can do it in kids church, or in youth group, or whatever it is.

This is something so practical, and culture’s really lost on this idea of knowing the Word of God. Having something like this—I was a youth pastor for almost 10 years, and I certainly incentivized the Word of God where we would do Bible memory verses and we would memorize things. One summer we would memorize the book of James, or memorize first John, or whatever it was, we would pick something different each year. I would give out prizes and trophies, and actually the first prize was a couple hundred dollars worth of prize trophy that would go to the first person that could get it memorized and I believe in the value of the Word of God so much that I didn’t mind rewarding people for that. I want to encourage you to know God’s word.

Make the Time to Read the Bible

This is certainly something that I think, for everybody listening, first of all if you’ve never read the Bible, read the Bible. Make it something you can dedicate between now and next Christmas. Take a year and read the Bible. Three point one chapters a day will get you all the way through the Bible.

The audio version is not a bad way to start your morning. You can listen to the One Year Bible on YouVersion. Download the app, whatever kind of smartphone you have, you can get YouVersion. Listen to it. But we as Christians need to get back to knowing what the Word of God says, and certainly such a fun example of somebody taking and making this practical application. Certainly good news on a Good News Friday.

Rick:

Quick break. We’ll be back with our last piece of good news for the day. Stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Patriot Academy

Rick:

Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? It’s not just that we have a few bad leaders taking us away from our founding principles and leading us down a road of destruction. The real challenge is that we’re looking around for leaders of principle to step up and too often no one is there.

This is a generational Challenge. And we must have a generational solution. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They’re crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. And we need to equip them for the purpose God has laid on their hearts.

Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. You, the listeners of Wallbuilders Live, have supported Patriot Academy over the years. You have sent your children and grandchildren to the program and the results have been remarkable.

Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit, in every area of the culture. They’re leading effectively and impacting the world around them.

Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation and now is your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit PatriotAcademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at PatriotAcademy.com.

What do 70% of Americans Agree on Aside from Chick-fil-A?

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live. It’s Good News Friday today, we got one more segment of good news and I believe David is up next. David?

David:

I’ve got a question for you guys. What are things that you can point to that you think 70 percent of Americans agree on?

Tim:

It’s fun to get presents.

Rick:

Right, Christmas, maybe? Well, I don’t know.

Tim:

I didn’t say Christmas.

Rick:

All right.

David:

Let me change this. Polling wise, what do people agree on?

Tim:

I think that could be answered in a poll.

“Yes, I like getting things. I like when people give me gifts.”

I think big tax refunds. Most Americans would agree on that right. That’s about all I got.

David:

Rick?

Rick:

Chick-fil-A. Definitely Chick-fil-A.

Tim:

That’s a winner. Good pick.

Rick:

The dissenters there have to be less than 30 percent I hope.

David:

Well? What else?

Rick:

That’s it. It’s all I got, man.

David:

Man, you guys are going shallow. If that’s the best you can come up with, you certainly would not have given the one I’m about to.

Tim:

Excuse me sir, let’s not pretend like Chick-fil-A was not a brilliant answer.

Rick:

That’s right. Did he really say that was shallow?

Tim:

Excuse me sir. Listeners, have no worries. We will have a conversation off air, I will take him to dinner, and we will solve this problem. Chick-fil-A will be upheld.

Rick:

Over waffle fries.

David:

Alright you guys.

The Media Fuels Rage

Rick:

So you might be going down the policy route here.

David:

I’ll talk to one that obviously you would not have come to. 72 percent of Americans believe that the media is what peddles hate and divides the country.

Rick:

Now that’s shocking.

Tim:

Well that’s true.

David:

But I would not have thought 72 percent would have said that.

Rick:

No.

Tim:

Yeah, it will be interesting because I’m sure there’s people on both sides the aisle saying, “Oh, it’s Fox. It’s CNN.”

Rick:

Yes, true.

Tim:

So probably, both sides could point to the other side. However, it’s one of the things we’ve said before. One of the things I appreciate about President Trump is when he started this #Fake News, it at least awakened people to the idea that you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. You can’t believe everything the news says. So no matter what side of the aisle you’re on, at least we’re coming to the place that you can’t believe everything you hear. It certainly is good news, but it could indicate again where this kind of polling or standing could come from, the 72 percent think the media is a problem.

Republican Judges Confirmed an More at WallBuilders Live

David:

Well, it’s interesting because there’s a majority of both parties. Both Republicans and Democrats said it, and more blamed the media than blame Trump. Trump gets a lot of criticism for it, so there is a lot of that, but only 28 percent of Americans think the media does not divide the country. So 72 percent says it does. That’s amazing. From my standpoint that means that a lot of people have a lot of red flags and question marks about the media.

Rick:

It’s actually good to know that, because it means hopefully people will not just absorb that information, but actually question it as it’s coming in.

We’ve got more good news for you next Friday, so make sure you listen in on those Friday programs for good news, or if you want to go to WallBuildersLive.com today, you can jump in the archive section at the radio site there and get some of those previous Friday programs as well. While you’re there go to that donor link and help us continue to spread this good news at WallBuildersLive.com. Make a donation today.

It could be a monthly donation if you’d like to come alongside us once a month with a five dollar donation. Give up one cup of coffee a month. Some of you out there can do a hundred dollars a month. We would certainly appreciate your support. And people all over the world are going to get the good news as a result.

So thanks for helping us out there. We appreciate you listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.

WALLBUILDERS LIVE! with David Barton, Tim Barton and Rick Green is a daily journey into the past to capture the ideas of the Founding Fathers of America and then apply them to the major issues of today. Featured guests will include Congressmen, Senators, and other elected officials, as well as experts, activists, authors, and commentators on a variety of issues facing America.